Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

‘Holy Mother of God, what’s going on?’ yelled de Wolfe. ‘Put him down!’

Gwyn stopped and grinned sheepishly at the coroner. ‘Little bastard knocked over my drinking jar — spilled the lot!’ he explained.

John motioned abruptly with his hand, and his officer reluctantly lowered his victim to the floor. The little man hauled himself indignantly to his feet and began to brush down his threadbare tunic, a long black garment of vaguely clerical appearance. ‘It was an accident. My writing bag caught the pot. You shouldn’t have left it on the edge of the window-sill!’ he protested, in a tremulous high-pitched squeak.

De Wolfe held up his hands in exasperation. ‘Just forget it and be quiet. You two should be court fools in caps and bells, not responsible servants of the law.’

His two assistants were always squabbling — it was mainly Gwyn’s fault, as the big man could never resist teasing their little clerk, who unfailingly rose to the bait. Thomas de Peyne was an unfrocked priest, employed by de Wolfe after having been ejected from his post at Winchester, accused of molesting one of the girls he was teaching at the cathedral school. He was a small wraith of a man, lame in one leg and with a slight hunchback, due to suffering from phthisis as a child. His thin, almost chinless face was sallow and adorned with a large pointed nose. The lank brown hair still sported a shaved tonsure on the crown, though he had been stripped of Holy Orders more than two years earlier. Thomas desperately craved a return to the priestly life and did all he could to pretend that he was still one of the brethren. Like his master, he wore black or grey clothes and even lodged in a canon’s house in the cathedral Close, where he had managed to scrounge himself a mattress in a corner of the servants’ quarters.

For all his dubious history and his unprepossessing appearance, Thomas was a highly intelligent and well-educated young man, with a gift for reading and writing. As well as his proficiency in recording all the coroner’s business on parchment rolls, he had proved himself invaluable as a spy. His indefatigable curiosity made him an excellent gatherer of gossip, especially among the large ecclesiastical population of Exeter, while Gwyn ferreted out rumours in the city inns and alehouses.

As Gwyn went back to sit on his favourite window-ledge with a refilled jar of cider, Thomas’s ruffled dignity was restored and he groped in the shabby cloth bag that hung from his shoulder. He pulled out three rolls and laid them on the table in front of John de Wolfe. ‘These are the last three inquest transcripts, Crowner. I have two more to do — the ink ran out, but I have more now so I’ll finish them later today.’

De Wolfe reached for them. ‘We’ll be riding out again this afternoon, Thomas, so get your bottom in shape for that winded nag you call a horse.’

The clerk groaned at the prospect. He was no horseman and sat side-saddle like a woman on his old pony, to the constant derision of the Cornishman. ‘How far this time, Crowner? Not the north coast, please.’

The previous month, they had made repeated journeys to the most distant part of the county and Thomas was still aching from the days he had suffered in the saddle.

‘Only a couple of hours, pansy,’ cut in Gwyn caustically. ‘Just to Chagford this time.’

The clerk was a Hampshire man and still unfamiliar with much of Devon. ‘Where’s that?’ he demanded suspiciously.

‘It’s one of the three Stannary towns, on this side of Dartmoor,’ explained de Wolfe. ‘All the tin from that district of the moor goes there for coinage.’

‘But we’re going there to view a headless corpse, Thomas,’ added Gwyn, with ghoulish relish. He knew that, even after six months’ experience, the ex-priest was still upset by macabre sights.

At the distant sound of bells coming from the cathedral, the coroner threw down Thomas’s rolls and made for the stairway. ‘I’ve got to eat with the sheriff, so whatever Mary cooks today will taste like ashes in my mouth,’ he said. ‘Be at the West Gate before Vespers toll. Put a blanket behind your saddles. I doubt we’ll be back tonight.’

The three sat eating at one end of the long table in de Wolfe’s sombre hall. He was at the head, with his wife and her brother on either side. Old Simon, the yard servant, had banked up the fire with logs and Mary bustled in and out with dishes and jugs. Brutus lay under the table at John’s feet, waiting hopefully for any scraps his master might drop down to him.

After some stilted conversation, they got down to the serious business of eating and the champing of jaws and slurping of wine were the only sounds for a quarter of an hour. Matilda, with her usual remarkable appetite, and the two men did justice to Mary’s hare stew and boiled chicken, with onions and cabbage. Instead of the usual trenchers of thick bread, the food was served on platters made of pewter, a snobbish fad of Matilda’s. She never missed a chance to ape the manners of the courtly classes. De Wolfe, who would not have cared if he had to eat his food off his horse’s back, refilled the pottery cups from a stone jar of red Poitou wine. They had a few wine glasses carefully stored in a chest, but he had vetoed their use today, not wishing to risk them merely for a midday meal with his brother-in-law.

After the meat, Mary brought in a mazer of bread, cut into chunks, with a large slab of hard cheese; there was no fruit at this early part of the year, the remains of last season’s apples having withered away. Courteously, Richard de Revelle used his own dagger to cut some slices of cheese for his sister, which she ate directly from the scrubbed oak boards of the table, washing them down liberally with wine.

‘I’ve got to go a-travelling soon,’ growled de Wolfe, ‘so let’s get down to your business here, Richard.’

The sheriff sipped his wine delicately before answering. ‘It’s quite simple, John. I’m two coroners short of the royal instructions.’

De Wolfe interrupted him abruptly. ‘What d’you mean, you’re short of two coroners? It’s nothing to do with you. They were instituted by the King’s Council — partly to keep an eye on you sheriffs! Some of you damn well need watching, too.’

De Revelle reddened, still smarting at the state of probation he had been under since his fall from grace. ‘Well, if you must split hairs, John, so be it — though why we need coroners at all is beyond my understanding. Until last year we had managed without them quite nicely for centuries.’ He never missed an opportunity to needle de Wolfe about his contempt for the new law officers. ‘Since Fitzrogo died, you have had the whole county to deal with — though during the two months you were laid up with that broken leg, Devonshire managed quite well without even one crowner.’

‘Get to the point, Richard,’ snapped John, who had tired of de Revelle’s endless sarcasm about his post. ‘You want that useless sot Theobald Fitz-Ivo to be appointed.’

De Revelle ran his fingers down the point of his little beard, a mannerism he affected just as Thomas incessantly crossed himself or Gwyn scratched vigorously at his crotch. ‘I wish to make him coroner for the northern part of the county.’

De Wolfe bristled again, though he knew his brother-in-law was being deliberately provocative. ‘You can’t make him anything. This is a royal appointment, requiring the King’s approval.’

‘In theory, John, in theory. I doubt if our Richard, busy in France on his jousting and his campaigns, can spare a thought for a triviality such as a coronership. However, I think the Shire Court, through me, will be recommending the appointment to the Chief Justiciar when I am in Winchester next week. No doubt he will ratify my suggestion.’